Closing the Digital Divide - Valley Stream District 30

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Doseamlessly communicate with others using tools of personal and masscollaboration – and they take for granted that this kind of access to others willbe available 24-7.6. Digital Learners prefer to learn “just-in-time.” Many educators prefer toteach “just-in-case.”Schools are organized around just-in-case. Just in case it’s on the exam. Justin case you need to know something to pass the course. Just in case you want tobecome a scientist or an astronaut. Digital Learners prefer to learn just in time.They want to gain an understanding of the things that they need to know toallow them to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge just in time to play agame or how to do something they don’t know how to do. Just-in-time learning isabout having the skills, knowledge and habits of mind that will allow them tolearn just in time when that next window of opportunity or area of interestopens to them.A classic example of just-in-time learners happens when a Digital Learnerpurchases or receives a new game or digital device.Do they read the manual from cover to cover like many of us do? Of course not!They pick it up and start messing around with it, pushing buttons and exploringthe interface. By the time we’ve read the table of contents, they’ve figured outten things that work and ten things that don’t work. Then they immediately goout online searching for blogs, user groups, cheat sheets and message boards tofigure out what else they can do; or the text or Skype their friends to get theinformation they need.7. Digital Learners prefer instant gratification and immediate rewards. Manyeducators prefer deferred gratification and delayed rewards.The digital culture provides exactly what kids need most - constant affirmation,lots of attention and the ability to distinguish themselves. Games and digitaltechnology tell the user that if they put in the time and master the game ordevice, they will be rewarded with access to the next level, with a win, or aplace on the all time high scorers' list. What they do determines what they get,and what they get is obviously intrinsically worth the effort they put in.New technologies excel at giving instant feedback, and the payoff for anyaction is typically very clear. Compare how often Digital Natives are expectedto make decision while gaming (every ½ to 1 second) and how often they arePage 5 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoWe can’t close our minds to other possibilities – to other research drivenapproaches for teaching, learning and assessment because they are not the waywe’ve always done it.And it’s not as some educators, parents and politicians believe a matter ofeither/or, us or them, our generation or theirs, our priorities or theirs, our wayof learning or theirs, our way or the highway.Kids are different – neurologically different, and as a result they see the worlddifferently than we do. But many educators only pay lip service to this notion.When told that kids are different, educators knowingly nod their heads - uhhuh -yup - but then they shut the door to the classroom and go back to businessas usual - and it could just as easily be 1960 all over again.The bottom line is that many people of our generations really don’t understandtheir digital world and we never will until we take the time to honor and respectwhere they are coming from.But to do this requires that teachers have a REAL understanding of 21 stCentury digital culture. And more than just understanding, we need to be ableto use the very 21st century tools and skills that educators and Friedman andPink tell students they’ll need to have in the culture of the 21st Century.And knowing about the digital culture is about more than just rhetoric - this isabout more than just talking about change and flapping our lips. This is aboutthe application of the 21st century skills by educators. To actually going fromtalking change to walking it. Let’s be clear that we will never have the level oftechnical skills Digital Kids have, but there are many other things that we cando that they can’t - we have our wisdom to share with them - but this requiresus to be walking change not just talking it.As an aside, we’ll help you. You can commit yourself to a 25 Week Digital Dietwhere every week you’re asked to learn and do some new and different digitaltool. Each week the challenges become larger, but you do it by taking babysteps.First you learn a new tool. Then you learn how to use the tool. Then learn to usethe tool to create your own digital resources and content. You can download the25 Week Digital Diet from the handout section of Ian’s web site athttp://www.ianjukes.com.Page 8 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoSo what kinds of learning activities, what kinds of tools are we talking abouthere?First go out on line and read the adventures of teenager Jeremy and his longsufferingdigital immigrant parents in the cartoon strip Zits. We don’t know whothe writers are but they absolutely nail it every day.To gain an appreciation of the amazing visual skills, lightning quick reflexes, andrapid-fire decision-making ability that digital kids have, try playing video gameswith them even if they will inevitably kick your butt.And to really get a feel for their remarkable ability to handle the simultaneousbombardment of multiple forms of information play those video games whilemusic is playing at bone jarring levels and a movie is running in the corner of thescreen.Take the time to explore their online worlds. Try to familiarize yourself withwhat they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Take a close look at what DigitalNatives are doing with video at YouTube.Go download some photos from Flickr.Take a look at MTV’s “The N” and learn about the latest trends - vomenting andvideo mashups - visual commenting where they add commentary to video via textblurbs or audio clips,Go out to Wikipedia and search for something of personal interest that’s reallyobscure. Then head write a wiki of your own on some area you’re knowledgeablein.Download ring tones to your cell phone.Go out to Technorati or the iTunes store to find, download, and listen topodcast. Then create a podcast of your own.Read and respond to a blog then create a blog of your own. Learn how to useInstant Messenger.Make a phone call or videophone call using Skype or iChat.Page 9 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoPlay a massively multiplayer on line role-playing game like Everquest, World ofWarcraft, or Maplestory.Create a personal avatar and attend a course virtually at Second Life, ClubPenguin or WebKinz.Become a thumbster on your cell phone.Open a MySpace or a Facebook account.Log on to Craigslist or eBay and spend some time exploring the amazing range ofgoods available for purchase.Beyond this, it’s also important that you appreciate the learning potential of theonline world, so pick a skill that your students would like to master like playingthe guitar or learning how to fix a mountain bike. Search the Internet for sitesthat will help you develop that skill.Go to Del.icio.us and create a Tag Cloud.Go out to TeacherTube and watch a Physics or Chemistry experiment or learnhow to write Haikus.The list goes on and on. Every day there are more tools and resourcesappearing. And remember, this is just the tip of a very large and growingiceberg of tools and resources.But, on the other hand, if you have no idea what we’ve been talking about forthe past few minutes - if we appear to have been speaking in tongues - then youhave just caught a glimpse of the gap between you and them and you haveconfirmed your digital immigrant status.You are beginning to see the breadth and depth of your personal digital divide.This divide is much less about have and have nots or the know and the know nots- and more about the generational divide between the way their generation andour generations look at the world - so catching up to them is really important.Page 10 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Do2. Teachers Must Teach to the Whole MindAs Daniel Pink writes, it’s about the whole new mind - not just to the traditionallinear logical, left to right, top to bottom beginning to end left side of the brainwhich is the hallmark of education today.But this is a great challenge in the age of high stakes testing and No Child LeftUntested. Consider typical classroom instruction today. The primary focus is ontypically memorization. The products are mainly traditional reports and tests.As students progress through the system it’s ASSUMED they will pick upcritical thinking skills.The problem is that everyone thinks it’s someone else’s job. Elementaryteachers assume that kids will be taught the critical thinking skills at the highschool level. But secondary teachers think that this should have alreadyhappened at the elementary level - and besides, second teachers don’t thinkthey have time to teach critical thinking skills because they have the curriculumto cover.Most teachers judge their success as teachers on how the top third of kids intheir classes do. But many of the top third really don’t need to be taught, Theytend to learn things on their own, they know things intuitively, they’re on thehonor roll, And if we’re really honest we’ll admit that many of them learn inspite of teachers and school, not because of them.The REAL test for teachers is not our top 1/3 rd of our students; it’s what we’reable to do with the kids in the bottom 2/3 rd . They’re ones that need to betaught.But instead of seeing them as an exciting challenge some teachers view thebottom 2/3 rds as a problem – as the kids that need to be fixed. These studentsrequire time, they require energy, they require new strategies, and they requirespecial attention.They’re the ones that get shipped off to special ed and learning assistance,because they don’t respond to the traditional one-size-fits-all teachingstrategies. That’s why there are kids who absolutely fail in our system as theyfly below the radar - then they go out and are hugely successfullyThink about tests. They’re primarily fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and shortanswer questions, simple answers that are easier to mark.Page 11 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoThen consider the language of the questions on the test. What kinds of verbsdo we see? Verbs like identify, name, list, define, explain, describe - verbs thatprimarily reflect low level left-brained recall and regurgitation of facts. Verbsthat reflect the lower end of Bloom’s Taxonomy – not verbs such as analyze,synthesize, apply, infer, interpolate.The primary sources are textbooks, black and white handouts, worksheets, testprep material. Materials that are decidedly non-technological, slow paced,twentieth century tools and environments. Cell phones, iPods and socialnetworking tools that are an everyday part of digital natives’ lives outside ofschool aren’t used - in fact in many cases they’re heavily restricted or banned.In banning access to their personal tools we are absolutely missing a hugeopportunity to connect with the digital culture - we’re whiffing the ball. In thedigital culture this kind of learning is SO boring and SO irrelevant for most kidsthat they have to power down when dealing with teachers. Digital kids spendhours before and after school playing games and wandering around in virtualworlds and networked environment and using social networking tools; and thencome to school where they are often confronted by the awesome power of anoverhead projector or dry erase pen and a whiteboardBeyond that it’s also ABSOLUTELY not preparing kids for the world they willgraduate into.What are the skills kids need today? What are the dynamics of the workingworld?First, as Friedman writes, there has been a shift in emphasis away from rotememorization to the higher level thinking, creativity and the problem solvingthat happen primarily in the right side of the brain. A shift to a skill set thatwas exclusively for the subset of management in the 20th Century. In the 21 stcentury everyone needs to have the higher-level thinking, creativity andproblem solving skill set.As Daniel Pink writes in a Whole New Mind, it’s about moving beyond 20thCentury literacies like reading, writing and numeracy. In an age of multimedia,hypertext, blogs, wikis, and much more, reading is no longer a passive, linearactivity that simply deals with text. And writing is no longer just about beingable to communicate effectively with written or spoken text.Rather it’s about having a wide range of different skills needed to functionwithin a rapidly changing society. For a long time our schools have placed a greatdeal of emphasis on training our students to be good consumers of traditionalPage 12 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Docontent by becoming good readers, writers and learners.In the age of digital content, success is about teaching our children to alsobecome good and responsible producers of content - writers, artists,composers, etc - to be prosumers - simultaneous producers and consumers ofcontent.In the information age, citizens will need to work with information in all formsto fashion content products that have value, that entertain and teach. But if alllearners do is read, write and calculate, they may be literate by 20th Centurystandards but certainly not by 21st Century standards. And as Friedman andPink write, if they leave school with only 20th Century skills they will absolutelynot be prepared for what awaits them after they finish school as a citizen, afamily member or a worker.To prepare them for their future, we need to move beyond literacy to anexpanded list of 21st century fluencies. Let me distinguish between literacy andfluency. When you are literate you still have to think about what you have to donext. Fluencies are unconscious skills. You don’t even have to think about them.You just intuitively know what to do.It’s like riding a bike - you don’t have to think about it – you just get on andride.The 21st Century fluencies our students must have and our teachers mustunderstand and be able to teach include:Technological FluencyTechnological fluency involves the transparent use of digital tools to perform awide range of tasks. It’s like using a pen. You don’t think about the pen, you justuse it. With a pen, it’s about being directly engaged between the tool and thetask – between your brain and the paper. With digital technology, it’s not aboutlearning Excel – it’s about using Excel to solve a problem. It’s not about usingWord – it’s about using Word to write. It’s not about PowerPointlessness – it’sabout using PowerPoint to communicate effectively.In each case, the primary focus is not on the cards and cables, not about RAMand ROM, not about hardware and software, not about the tool but the taskthat needs to be accomplished. The primary focus is on headware not hardware– critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making. A focus on headwarePage 13 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Dorather than hardware means learning about the technology is nothing but anincidental but essential byproduct of that process.For example if you’re in the magazine industry you might need a specificphotograph. You’re not thinking, “I need to learn to use a digital camera”.Rather, you’re thinking, “how can I use the digital camera to take thephotographs I need?” You learn to use the camera – that’s the means to the end- to take the needed photographs – which is the end.The task drives the use of the technology. Learning about the technology isnothing but an incidental but essential byproduct of that process.Next there’s:Media FluencyMedia fluency is not just about the ability to operate a digital camera, create apodcast, or build a Power Point presentation, or write a document, It’s aboutbeing able to look critically at the content of a web site, a PowerPointpresentation, a podcast, a video, a blog, a wiki, a TV show, a newscast, or a videogame - and be able to understand how that particular medium is being used tocommunicate with the users. It’s about how the media is used to shape ourthinking.And it’s not just that a particular medium is being used or about how it’s beingused, it’s about how well the medium is being used to communicate the message.But media fluency is not just for passive viewing. We live in an interactive visualworld. It’s also about digital natives creating and publishing original digitalproducts that help them communicate as effectively with visual & auditoryelements as we were taught to communicate with textThe problem is that many digital natives outwardly appear to have exceptionaltechnical and media skills which belie the fact that they have large holes intheir understanding of the tools and techniques for effective communicationThe Internet is a wasteland of digital products created by people who havelittle or no understanding of how to construct digital documents thatcommunicate their messages effectively.At the same time, it’s critical for educators to understand that excellentwriting skills are not enough to be good communicators in a multimedia world.Effective communication is about more than just traditional products like aPage 14 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Dohandwritten or typed report on the symbolism in the Lord of Flies.That’s why we need to challenge students to create digital products asoutcomes that not only reflect an understanding of the necessary content. Notonly to develop technical skills such as using a video camera, designing a web siteor making a presentations – but also provides them with the empoweringprinciples of graphical design, color theory, video editing, and the use ofapparent motion to help them to do things better and to fill in those holes intheir Swiss cheese understanding of media.We have to note that most of these skills are either not taught in school orconsidered secondary, optional or elective if they are taught at all. In the 21 stCentury those skills need to get a promotion - and they can’t be consideredoptional. In the 21 st Century they need to be every bit as important if notMORE important as history, mathematics, and English literature.The difference here is that instead of submitting an essay written by hand,students will use a word processor, film, blog, podcast, wiki, or any other of awide range of other digital products. Teachers need to understand that thesenew products we’re describing are not just fads - they’re essential buildingblocks of communications and understanding for the 21st Century. In theculture of the 21st Century all students need to have these media fluency skills.Finally there’s:Information FluencyInformation fluency is the ability to unconsciously and intuitively interpretinformation in all forms and formats in order to extract the essentialknowledge and perceive its meaning and significance. There are 5 distinct stepsto the process – what we call the 5 A’s.First the researcher needs to be able to Ask good questions. If the researchercan’t ask good questions, they will not get good answer.Once you have good questions, then based on those questions you have to beable to Access and Acquire raw material from the most appropriate high tech,low tech and no tech sources. This is not just about going to the card catalogand getting a book – this is about YouTube, Wikipedia, music, or interactive websites.Page 15 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoDigital resources are more and more the raw materials of the 21 st C. More andmore of these raw materials are graphical and audiovisual in nature. It’s nolonger just the traditional paper based resources of our youth.Then to be able to Analyze and Authenticate the acquired data to distinguishbetween the good, the bad and the ugly of information - to distinguish betweenfact and opinion - to understand bias – and in the process to turn the data intousable knowledge.Then to be able to Apply the knowledge within the context of a real life, realworld problem or a simulation of that problem - to build a bridge, write anessay, complete a science experiment, or perform in a debate. At this stage theresearcher is asked to move from theory into practice.And finally the researcher is asked to Assess both the product and the process.What was learned, how was it learned, how could we make this process, howcould we make this product better the next time around? And understandingthat Assess is not just a teacher task, it’s also a learner task.As you can see we don’t hold strong opinions about these things. We believethat information fluency is the absolute backbone of education and needs to betaught in the same structured manner that Math, science, social studies andlanguage is taught. Taught at every grade and every subject area by everyteacher from Kindergarten through to senility.Two related resources of interest can be downloaded from the handout sectionof http://www.ianjukes.com - they are:1. 21st Century Fluency Skills: Attributes of Digital Learners; and2. 21st Century Fluency Audit Tool.But we have to be clear that if all we do is add another layer of curriculumnothing will change. In order to help students learn these 21st Century fluencyskills the next thing that needs to be done is:Page 16 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Do3. Educators Need to Shift Their Instructional ApproachThere has to be a shift away from the predominant left-brained traditionalstand and deliver, full frontal lecture approach of the 20 th Century. We mustresist the temptation to tell the whole story and must stop giving them the endproduct of our thinking.The problem with telling is that it takes the excitement of discovery out oflearning. Telling someone something removes the first hand experience just likewhen someone tells you the ending to a suspenseful movie you’re about to watch.Telling also eliminates the motivation for learning. When we tell the wholestory, there’s no necessity to go out and get the skills and information becausesomeone is going to tell you what you need to know.Now let’s be clear, there absolutely IS a place for telling - it can be very usefulwhen you have to deliver a lot of content. But we need to shift our instructionfrom predominantly full frontal lecturing to more of an emphasis on discoverylearning.In essence, we need to learn to teach lazy. Our job as educators should not beto stand up in front of students and show them how smart we are. Our job aseducators is to empower them to become independent thinkers. To be men &women who are capable of thinking outside the lines - of doing new & creativethings, not simply repeating what other generations have done before them.We need to invoke a fundamental policy of progressive withdrawal into theirlives. Let me explain why.When children come to us in kindergarten there are completely dependent on usto tell them what they need to do - and if we continue to focus primarily oncontent, and memorization and value that as being more important than thinkingfor themselves, they are still completely dependent on us in Grade 12 to tellthem what they need to do to pass the test, pass the course, pass the gradeand graduate.And then when they leave us after 13 years of schooling and they fall flat ontheir faces as many of them do, we can’t understand why it happened. It’s ourfault. Because from kindergarten on we’ve focused on, we’ve maintained, aculture of dependency – a dependency on the teacher, the textbook, the test.Our job is to make sure they don’t need us by the time they graduate from ourschools. Our job is the same as being a parent. Think about a child’s veryPage 17 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Doconfident steps. What does it look like…WOBBLE, WOBBLE, LURCH…What’s inevitably going to happen? CRASH!So when they do fall over, do we rush over to them and say C-, 36 percent, I’msorry you’ve had three chances, you don’t get any more…?Of course not! What do we do? CLAP, CLAP, CLAP. We help them up we brushthem off, we encourage them to try again. Why? Because our job, as difficult asit may be, particularly during their teenage years, is to help them to becomeindependent and self-reliant.So why do we know that intuitively as parents, but in schools we continue tohang on tight - to cultivate and maintain our culture of dependency -dependency on the teacher, the textbook, the test.We need to teach lazy. We need to use progressive withdrawal. We need tomove from being the sage on the stage to being the guide on the side - thefacilitator of learning.Why? Because today we live in an age of InfoWhelm where accessible data isgrowing at exponential rates. As a result, it’s just not possible for teachers tobe the experts they once were or to keep students engaged.It was increasingly difficult to be an expert during the 20 th Century. With theemergence of digital media, the Internet and InfoWhelm being an expert hasbecome impossible in the 21 st C. But despite the fact that we now live in an ageof InfoWhelm, students continue to spend the vast majority of class time beinglectured to. The primary focus is on LOTS - lower order thinking skills, simpledata information recall, memorization and lots of information.Dale’s Learning ConeThis is Edgar Dale’s Learning Cone, first developed in the 60’s but reaffirmedby the research and adapted again and again - other derivatives of it are alsoknown as the learning pyramid, or learning triangle:Page 18 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoWhat their research tells us is that on average after two weeks we recall:• less than 10% of the content of what we read,• about 20% of what we hear, like from a lecture• 20 to 30% of content simultaneously using two or more media, like looking atpictures or watching a movie• about 30% of lessons involving demonstration• about 50% of content that we hear and see like while watching ademonstration that uses two or more media simultaneously• 65-80%% of content that involves practice by doing like participating in adiscussion or giving a talk• and about 90% that involves the teaching of a concept to others as well asthe immediate application of the learning within the context of a real time,real world task or a simulation of that taskAll of this operates on a continuum from passive receiving of information andtraditional learning with a primary focus on LOTS (lower order thinking skills)to active participation and engagement with information, and a focus on HOTS(higher order thinking skills).Standardized Tests For Non-Standardized BrainsIn the face of this research, we need to acknowledge that we’re continuing touse standardized, traditional tests to measure increasingly non-standardizedbrains. We’re literally trying to fit round pegs into square holes, and squarePage 19 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Dopegs into round holes.It’s not that students have ADD or ADHD. Outside of the US, Canada, Britain,Australia and New Zealand we have almost no cases of ADD or ADHD - whichhere has become the official overmedicated brain syndrome of the informationage.The real problem is that they’re just not interested, not listening andincreasingly tuning us out.We hear teachers complain all the time that kids have short attention spans -that students just can’t focus - that they can’t even remember the names ofthe state or the capitals when asked.Meanwhile that same student is thinking, “Why do I have to know this when Ican Google the answer in 2 seconds.”And the same kid who can’t remember can instantly and enthusiasticallyremember the lyrics to 1000 songs or the characteristics of 100 video gamecharacters. Their attention spans aren’t short for games or music, or anythingelse that actually interests them. They just have short attention spans for oldways of teaching, learning and assessment of that learning.The problem is that as educators we just don’t understand how different digitalnatives are. They’re not just a little different they’re completely different. Theproblem is that today’s learners are not the learners our schools were originallydesigned for. And today’s learners are certainly not the students that teacherswere trained to teach.The bottom line is that if we want understanding, if we want retention, if wewant success on school exams, state exams, AP or ACT exams, if we want toaddress and exceed the mandates of NCLB, if we want children to demonstrateproficiency beyond content recall, we can’t just lecture to them. The emphasisin the classroom can’t just be exclusively on LOTS - lower order thinking skills -simple data information recall - and LOTS and LOTS of information.If we want our kids to be successful on the test - if we want them to besuccessful in life beyond being able to successfully complete a written exam - ifwe want them to graduate as more than just highly educated useless people -people who are good at school but not adequately prepared for life - then ouremphasis as professional educators has to be on much more than just contentPage 20 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Dorecall - it has to be on much more than LOTS - we must give them assignmentsthat require higher level thought.A Focus on HOTSOur focus has to include HOTS - higher order thinking skills, on HowardGardner, on Bloom’s Taxonomy, de Bono, on critical thinking, problem solving andthe 21st Century fluencies and metacognitive skills that move beyond thetheory to the application of what is learned by making a fundamental shift togiving problems first and teaching second.The starting point is to remind you about how truly different their students areand adjust your assumptions about teaching, learning and assessmentaccordingly.The biggest gift teachers can give their children is their wisdom. What are theimplications? What’s the big picture? Where are the connections? How doesthis relate?It’s important to acknowledge that while many students are technically adept,most of them haven’t yet gained the life experiences necessary to understandthe broader implications – at least to do this on their own.In an age of InfoWhelm teachers can’ no longer be the content expert but theycan be the problem solving expert. And as Edgar Dale’s Learning Conedemonstrates context is king, relevance is needed for retention - and it has tobe relevant to the learner not just the teacher.Effective learners make a series of attachments or relationships between theirexisting knowledge & new information. Richard Wurman calls this Velcrolearning.You see novice learners often just try to remember facts in lists, which we allknow is the common strategy for students preparing for quizzes & tests. Theproblem is that information that doesn’t have a context, interest, or relevanceor reinforcement is like having only one side of a piece of Velcro – things justdon’t stick.True learning can only occur when the brain can make meaning through a seriesof relevant connections between past experiences and new information. Whenthe two are combined, long-term learning sticks permanently and powerfully tothe student - just like Velcro.Page 21 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Do4. We Need to Let Students Access Information NativelyThroughout history, education has always struggled trying to come to termswith new innovations and tools that are central to society only to relent laterwhen the educational value of the new innovations and tools became clear.As examples, Father Stanley Bezuska once noted:At a teacher’s conference in 1703, it was reported that students could nolonger prepare bark to calculate problems. They depended instead on expensiveslates. What would students do when the slate was dropped and breaks?In 1815, it was reported at a principal’s meeting that students depended toomuch on paper. They no longer knew how to write on a slate without getting dustall over themselves. What would happen when they ran out of paper?(And did they think that paper grew on trees? – our comment)The National Association of Teachers reported in 1907 that students dependedtoo much on ink and no longer knew how to use a knife to sharpen a pencil.According to the Rural American Teacher in 1928, students depended too muchon store bought ink. They did not know how to make their own. What wouldhappen when they ran out? They wouldn’t be able to write until their next tripto the settlement.In 1950, it was observed that ballpoint pens would be the ruin of education.Students were using these devices and then just throwing them away. Thevalues of thrift and frugality were being discarded. Businesses and banks wouldnever allow such expensive luxuries.In 1966 it was noted that electronic calculators would never be able to competewith the computational ability of the human brain.In 1988 in an article written for the National Association of Secondary SchoolPrincipals it was declared that there was no good evidence that most uses ofcomputers significantly improved teaching & learning and that most schoolswould be better off if they just threw their computers into dumpsters.Cell phones, iPods, and social networking tools are just the latest trends to bethrown under the bus by education.Page 22 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoSocial networks are communities of people who share interests and activities.Social networking is primarily web based and provides a variety of ways forusers to interact, such as chat rooms, instant messaging, video, voice chat, filesharing, blogging, or discussion groups and so on.A new National School Board Association study has concluded that digitaldevices and social networking are now so deeply embedded in the lifestyles of 9to 17 years olds that it rivals TV for their time and attention.While these devices and social networking appears to be an everyday part oflives of tweenagers and teenagers outside of school, most school districts havecreated rules against, or banned outright the use cell phones, iPods and otherdigital devices, and online activities such as chatting, tagging, instant messaging,bulletin boards, blogging, wikis, sending and receiving email at school, RSSreaders, educational video games, or the use of social networks.In many cases this has been done without efforts being made to firstthoroughly understand these devices and tools or considering the enormouspotential they have to provide enhanced learning opportunities and improvedacademic performance.This widespread blocking of these tools and activities is happening at the sametime that in businesses and higher education, social networking and digitaldevices are commonly being used as the communications and collaboration toolsof choice. The report suggests that schools may be missing a HUGE opportunityto leverage digital tools and social networking tools at powerful learningresources and that we need to examine the remarkable educational potential ofsocial networking, chat rooms, instant messaging, blogs, wikis, cell phones,digital tools, streaming video, tagging tools, RSS readers and much more forafter-school homework help, review sessions and collaborative projects toenhance learning, teaching and assessment. Next:Page 23 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Do5. We Must Let Students CollaborateUnderstanding that 21st Century collaboration goes WAY beyond traditionalworking in groups.It also means allowing them to collaborate using the digital tools that are aneveryday part of their culture. We’re not talking about using whiteboards, dryerase colored pen, overhead projector, or even a smartboard.We shouldn’t be banning digital devices; we should be encouraging them to usethem. Why? Because we live in a network culture that is the new reality of bothbusiness and lifeAs Donald Tapscott writes in his new book Wikinomics, we live in a network agethat has fundamentally changed the nature of business. Companies today areusing mass collaboration, open source and social networking tools such as wikis,blogs, podcasts and virtual learning environments to be successful.By coming together and cooperating with competitors to improve a givenoperation or solve problems. Wikinomics is a radical concept by traditional 20thCentury thinking. Wikinomics is working and it’s FUNDAMENTALLY reshapingthe face of businessDigital kids do the very same thing in their personal lives with their digitaltechnology, their social networking software and their digital mindsets. Theywork together in virtual digital mobs to get things done in creative andoccasionally unimaginable ways (Ted calls this spontaneous ad hocism). Plans arefluid, so in the course of an evening digital mobs can do 5 things with 5different groups that Digital Immigrants might not have imagined being able todo in 5 weeks. This happens because they see the world differently than we doand they use their tools differently than we might to create unique digitalproducts.In the new digital landscape these tools aren’t just optional. They are a culturalnecessity and a fundamental foundation of 21st Century life. Digital Nativescould just as easily be texting with a kid in Afghanistan, Iraq or Venezuelaabout civil war as someone across town. They could just as easily bevideoconferencing on a project with someone from Denmark as someone fromsomewhere else in the state or province. They can share cultural informationwith a student in Japan as easily as they can with someone in the next seat. Thepossibilities are literally unlimited.Page 24 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Do6. We Need to Let Students Create Real World Digital ProductsWe need them to create real world, real time digital products that allow themto reflect their understanding of both content and process. Learning is not justabout the content learned; it’s also about the context in which the content isused. Learning is not just about end product of the learning but also the processthat took place to gain that understanding. Learning is not just about the toolthat was used; it’s also about how it was used to solve the task.Digital tools can help with the process of learning and producing the product oflearning. And it’s not just about using digital tools because kids will like them.The digital tools enhance traditional learning – they’re better.For example, think about producing a magazine. What would be the primary toolyou would choose to use – pen and paper or a word processor? Obviously mostpeople would choose a word processor, not because word processing is cool butbecause it’s a better tool for writing.Think of the 5 steps of the writing process - plan, draft, revise, proof, publish –the word processor is far more effective for each of these steps. This is whymodern publishers use word processing exclusively for the writing process.Consider the tools that are used for creating the end product of publishing –photo manipulation, desktop publishing, web design, and video. These are thetools being used in the workplace, not because they’re cool to use but becausethey are the most powerful tools for producing the end product given toconsumersThese are digital natives. We need to let them use their digital tools todemonstrate their knowledge of the subject while understanding that they willprobably use these technologies differently than we would and also that theywill use it in unexpected ways to create unexpected products. This is howvomenting and mashups became instantly popular in digital cultureBy letting them access information natively we acknowledge their culture. Ourjob is to show them how to be more effective with what they do, even whenthey take their products further than we can visualize or imagine. They cantake it further than we can imagine because they live in different culture - avisual multimedia hyperlinked culture.So instead of traditional products like a handwritten or typed report on thesymbolism in the Lord of Flies, we need to challenge them to create digitalPage 25 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Doproducts as outcomes that not only cover the necessary content, not only todevelop technical skills such as using a video camera, designing a web site ormaking a presentation; but also provide them with the empowering principles ofgraphical design, color theory, video and sound editing to help them do thingsbetter and to fill in those holes in their thinking. These are digital nativesraised in the new digital landscape.Because they view the world fundamentally differently than we do they willproduce different products than we would; and they will produce products thatreflect both the product and the process of their thinking; and that result inthe creation of digital products that reflect more of a focus on HOTS, criticalthinking, problem solving and 21st Century fluencies rather than just on thetraditional LOTS. And finally:Page 26 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Do7. We Must Re-evaluate Assessment and EvaluationWhile there is still a place for traditional testing, true assessment is aboutmuch more than just memorization or content recall or the results of paperbased,fill-in-the-blanks, short answer or bubble tests.We don’t need a pilot who just did well on the bubble test or the written exambecause written tests do not generally measure things related to success in life.What we need is a pilot who not only got 100% on the written exam, but can alsoland the plane perfectly 1000% of the time despite the fact that they may bedealing with mechanical failure, electrical failure, hydraulic failure or the factthat some idiot is trying to kick down the door.Assessment and evaluation have to be used as more than tools of measurement –they have to be tools of change and learning. They have to be tools of changefor both student and teachers. Evaluation has to help both students ANDteachers get better at what they do. Assessment and evaluation are not justtools of accountability for external bodies that have little if any understandingof what real learning is about.Learners need clear and realistic standards, expectations, and criteria to worktoward. They need appropriate tools, technologies, and resources to work with;they need lots of modeling, coaching, and mentoring to establish a sense of whatquality and success look like.They need lots of guided and independent practice. They need timely, targeted,non-judgmental feedback on their performance. They need opportunities tomake mistakes as they learn and not be penalized for them. And they needauthentic audiences in a variety of settings and contexts in which todemonstrate what they can do.But most of all they need the encouragement to try and to do things in all kindsof performance areas with all kinds of tools, technologies and techniques tocreate all kinds of products that reflect their understanding of concepts. Butfor this to happen, we need to rethink assessment and evaluation and go beyondthe traditional quantitative summative assessment of learning that doesn’treally help the students get better and really doesn’t help the teachers otherthan to scare the heck out them.Knowing content doesn’t make you competent. Competence is the ability to applycontent in some useful way. But if we want our students to be competent, weneed to rethink assessment and evaluation and go beyond the traditionalPage 27 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Doquantitative summative assessment of learning that doesn’t really help studentsget better and really doesn’t help the teachers other than to scare the heckout them.Eventually we’ll start learning about these new digital tools but in the short run,we need help from people who understand how new media is put together, canevaluate the technical parts, and assess the effectiveness of the productcreated.It’s not that they are going to mark the projects. Rather, they are there tohelp teachers learn how to evaluate a movie, the script, the lighting, the greenscreens, the pacing – skills above and the traditional writing of the script. It isimportant that we just create another specialist job like learning disabled so Idon’t have to learn that job.Knowing content doesn’t make you competent. Competence is the ability to applycontent in some useful way. But if we want our students to be competent, weneed to rethink assessment and evaluation. This is about designing learningopportunities for qualitative formative assessment - self assessment - teamassessment - culminating assessment - assessment of what has been learnedwithin the context of a real time, real world problemOur task is not to do a better job of teaching a curriculum designed forpreparing students for life and work the 19th or 20th century. Rather our taskto design a different way of teaching designed for preparing students for life,learning and work in the 21st Century.So How Do We Bridge This Digital Divide?First we need to roll up our sleeves and acknowledge that there’s lots of workto be done. And if we are willing to acknowledge this - if we are willing to meetthe digital generation half way - if we are willing to acknowledge and embracetheir world, as we expect them to embrace ours, we will set them free. And indoing so, we will be able to leverage their digital lifestyle and help each andevery one of them become better, more engaged, more independent learners.If we want to truly unfold the full intellectual & creative genius of all of ourstudents more of the time - if we want to prepare them for the world thatawaits them - if we want to help them prepare for their future, not our past -for their future, not our comfort zone – if our nations are going to marchthrough the 21st Century & maintain its longstanding tradition of success - ifPage 28 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to Dowe want our children to have the relevant 21st century skills - we must create abridge between their digital world and ours.We live in amazing times, remarkable times, overwhelming times this wasbeautifully summarized by philosopher Alfred North Whitehead 100 year agowhen he wrote:It is the business of the future to be dangerous. The major advancesin civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in whichthey occur.Alfred North WhiteheadAnd remember that today the long term is measured not in terms of centuries,or decades but in years and sometimes months, weeks, days and hours. We live ina moment in history where change has become so speeded up that we begin tosee the present only when it’s already disappearing into the past.Our biggest challenge is and will continue to be comprehending and accepting thescale of change. We’re talking about change changing so rapidly that very natureof change is changingBut when changes are happening quickly we tend to want to hang on to old ideasand assumptions about the world. And when we do this, we run the risk of endingup crashing headlong into the future.This is perfectly summarized by the great philosopher Erik Hoffer when hewrote:In times of radical change the learners inherit the earth while thelearned find themselves perfectly equipped for a world that no longerexists.Erik HofferOur greatest fear is that at this moment, despite our very best efforts, we aredoing a terrific job of preparing our children for year 1960 and we may be beingoptimistic in saying that.So what have we being trying to do to you with this handout. At the end of ourpresentations, we take a large rubber band and we stretch it out and hold itthere. After awhile, when our arms get tired, we release the pressure on therubber band and it snaps right back to where it was before.Page 29 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoWhy? Because a rubber band has a mindset, a paradigm, a comfort zone, a placeit’s been for a long period of time – a place that it likes to be.So how do you get a rubber band to stretch and stay stretched?There are several things you can do. You can wrap it around something, you canheat it, you can freeze it, you can rub it with a solvent to change the chemicalcomposition.The interesting thing is that even after all that effort, when you release thepressure the rubber band still tries to go back to where it was in the beginning.You see, intellectually we all understand that the world has changed. We nod ourheads, and agree that things are different. But, as the old saying goes, “whenthe going gets tough, the tough get traditional.” At an unconscious level withouteven being aware that we are doing it we can revert back to our old habits andbeliefs.The rubber band effect occurs when your mind recoils from the discomfort ofnew ideas that are outside your past experience. We tend to unconsciouslyrevert to the status quo and go back to doing things the way we always have. Itis a predictable phase that all people go through when dealing with change. Youwill experience it today, tomorrow or sometime in the near future when yourealize the true implications of the new ideas that have been discussed.And remember, staff development without follow-up is malpractice.Do you want to read more about this? If so, head out tohttp://www.ianjukes.com and check out the Committed Sardine web site.Handouts, articles, funny photos, reading list, great links and the CommittedSardine Blog which is read by more than 75,000 people around the planet.Page 30 of 31

Closing the Digital Divide: The Seven Things Education and Educators Need to DoFOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT:Ian JukesCell: 250-462-0767Fax: 250-490-4969E-mail: iajukes@mac.comCheck out the Committed Sardine Blog at: http://ianjukes.comWeb siteshttp://www.infosavvygroup.comhttp://www.ianjukes.comhttp://www.thecommittedsardine.netOFFICE MANAGERLori AndersonOffice: 250-717-0998Fax: 250-717-0999E-mail: ijukes@shaw.ca (Lori Anderson)Copyright Policy:This handout, and materials published on The Committed Sardine web site may beduplicated in hard copy format for educational, non-profit school district use onlyand must include this copyright policy. All other uses, transmissions andduplications are prohibited unless permission has been expressly granted.Page 31 of 31